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I smiled warmly. “Okay.”
He returned my smile and slipped through the door, which I closed securely behind him. Locking it seemed silly somehow, considering the jagged, gaping hole in my shop.
Call the sign company, my mind said distractedly. See if they have a window installer.
I wanted to move, but my feet remained planted. For more than one reason, I was suddenly sorry Zane had left.
You like him.
I smirked sardonically at the voice in my head. What was there not to like? So far the man was perfect, inside and out. Strong, sweet, beautiful. Filled with an optimism and innocence that made him even more appealing, which was strange considering the losers I’d been attracted to in the past.
All at once I decided to go next door, and see if any of my fellow shopkeeps had a vacuum I could borrow. It certainly couldn’t hurt to find out.
As I left I passed the armoire, which stood there mocking me. My silent, brooding enemy. One that could only be defeated if I were bold enough to dial a few phone numbers
. And then I remembered Zane’s parting words to me — especially that last word — and all new butterflies took flight in my stomach.
Call us.
Fourteen
SAVANNAH
I dreamt… and in my dream I was completely and utterly alone.
That part didn’t frighten me. I’d been alone almost all my life. No, it was the intensity of the loneliness that bothered me. The sort of total abandonment that came only with the end of the world, or in this case, being trapped on all sides by a void of impenetrable darkness.
I probed with my arms and legs, but I couldn’t feel anything. In fact, I wasn’t sure if I were standing up or lying down. The only sensations I had were of hopelessness and despair. A grim and terrifying foreboding, as if nothing would ever be right in my world again.
And then… something moved.
The darkness became shadows, and in those shadows I saw faces. Strangers. Foreigners. People I knew. But then the people I knew became strangers as well, as the memory of how I knew them slipped desperately away.
Light seeped in, but it wasn’t true light so much as it was an absence of darkness. A cold light that made everything pale and grayer still. Shapes formed. Objects coalesced. Some were familiar. Others…
Without warning I was surrounded by something else. Metal. Leather. Plastic. There was a sound, or rather — a song. It played faintly as background noise, as the faces to one side of me became people I not only knew, but actually despised.
You have to run.
I knew it was truth, but it was also an impossibility. There was nowhere to run. No way of getting out of the situation I was in, and even worse, the knowledge that it was I who’d put myself in such a place to begin with.
GO!
I struggled, but my wrists were pinned. Someone had me. A hand went into my hair, yanking my head backwards. Forcing my face to the sky, only there was no sky.
Do somethin—
The explosion came next, as it always did. A white-hot flash, followed by a searing, burning pain, radiating down from my shoulder. The noise was so loud it was thunderous. It obliterated everything…
I woke up drenched in sweat, my heart pounding. My throat felt like it was on fire.
Fuck.
I thought I was done, as I had been before. But just when I’d forget, the dream would come back. It happened every time I got complacent. Every. Single. Time.
In the past I’d sit up in bed, waiting until I was calm again. But I found that never worked. The best remedy was to get up, and get out. Starting my day and staying busy was the only way to keep my mind from dwelling on the darkness of my recurring nightmare.
Luckily today would be the busiest one in a long time.
